The way people consume television is changing dramatically. Previously, a consumer had to watch a television program the night it aired. However, the introduction of the personal video recorder (PVR) and video on demand (VOD) services now provides the consumer the ability to watch a television program during other times. The original airing time of the television program is no longer the most important piece of information relating to the program itself. In fact, the airing time of the television program is irrelevant as long as the consumer requests recording of the television program prior to the airing time or the television program is available on video on-demand (“VoD”).
Scheduling the recording of a television program is often done via an electronic program guide (EPG). Conventional EPGs are displayed on a grid. Typically, the vertical axis of the EPG grid displays the available channels and the horizontal axis of the EPG grid displays the time. Each intersection of the vertical axis (channel) with the horizontal axis (time) displays an airing of a television program. The viewer may scroll along both the horizontal axis and vertical axis to identify television programs being broadcast at different times and on different channels. The EPG provides the viewer the ability to view additional information for a television program by selecting the specific airing of the television program in the EPG.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional EPG 10 for selecting scheduled programs. EPG 10 may be used to schedule a recording request for a particular episode. In the EPG 10, an episode of “That '70s Show” 12 is scheduled to be broadcast between 10:00 pm and 10:30 pm on Channel 36, an episode of “SportsCenter” 14 is scheduled to be broadcast between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm on Channel 38, the movie “Forrest Gump” 16 is scheduled to be broadcast between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm on Channel 37 and an episode of “Good Eats” 18 is scheduled to be broadcast between 11:00 pm and 11:30 pm on channel 35. The EPG 10 restricts the user's view to a few channels at a time (6 channels at a time in the EPG 10) for a limited period of time (90 minutes in the EPG 10).